Developed By Students to Reduce Dependence on Manual Measurement Tools A Technical Project at UoB Helps Referees Officiate Boccia Matches

Sakhir – University of Bahrain – Mansoor Al-Wanni

14 August 2023

A team of University of Bahrain (UoB) students presented a technical system that can help referees officiate boccia matches by reducing the use of manual measurement tools and reducing the wasted time in matches.

The sport of boccia is a precise ball sport related to iron balls, and it is competed in at the local and international levels by athletes with disabilities.

Students in the College of Information Technology: Weam Ajur, Nawaf Nadheer, Fatima Al-Murbati, and Aisha Ayman Mirza presented a project titled: “The Boccia Arbitration System.” The project presented solutions to a number of problems that arose during the recent hosting of the World Cup for this game, including manual measurement, high cost, delay in the tournament, in addition to losing the element of excitement for the viewer. In addition, certain technologies were employed by the students, such as: image processing, the Unity platform, and cloud computing.

After experimenting with the system during field matches, the student team concluded that the system contributes to reducing the match time from half an hour to seven minutes, and helps the referees officiate the match, by knowing the next team faster, and knowing the current result immediately after throwing the ball. Also, it helps to reduce costs, facilitates conducting tournaments, and adds an element of entertainment to viewers by showing the best throw for each round using a three-dimensional simulation. The project was supervised by Dr. Qassem Turki Obeidat, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science, and the project was developed in cooperation with the Cloud Innovation Center at UoB, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and the Labor Fund (Tamkeen).

The College of Information Technology had organized the graduation projects exhibit for students of the three departments in the College: computer engineering, computer science, and information systems, at the end of the second semester of the academic year 2022/2023, which included 53 projects prepared by about 152 students.

It is noteworthy that the graduation projects exhibit of for the students of the College of Information Technology – which is held at the end of each semester – is a subject of interest and follow-up to many professional sectors in the technical fields, employers, and a number of companies that seek to adopt innovative student projects.

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